1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic music playing apparatus for automatically playing music while reading play data out of memory. More particularly, the invention relates to such an automatic music playing apparatus using a memory of reduced size.
2. Prior Art
Repetitive phrases or segments are generally included in a piece of music. In a conventional automatic music playing apparatus, identical play data for each of the representative phrases is individually stored in a memory. For example, when the same phrase or segment is repeated three times, identical play data is thrice written in different locations of the memory.
An automatic music playing apparatus has been proposed in Japanese Patent Publication (examined) No. 60-25791 entitled "Electric Musical Instrument", in which automatic playing is performed by repeatedly reading the same play data out of memory. Specifically, when it is desired to repeatedly play a certain segment, a switch is depressed to read play data of the segment out of memory. In the conventional apparatus, although play data for all the repetitive segments are not stored in the memory, automatic music play can be performed.
In this apparatus, however, a memory reading address changes instantaneously upon depression of the switch, so it has been required that the switch depression be performed in exact coincidence with the beginning of a bar line of a score. In practice, however, such timing is extremely difficult.